NAPLES - In the world of celeb­rity advance interviews, there are the stars who snuff out questions. "I've been straining my voice and the doctor wants me to rest it." Give scripted answers. Or simply refuse to talk: "That's not a sub­ject I want to talk about" responses.

And then there's George Hamilton.

"Can I call you back?" he asks, explaining he's not finished with talking with his other interviewer yet.

"I hate these 15-minute interviews," he declares when, true to his word, he calls 10 minutes later. "You just can't get into a conver­sation in any depth."

And in the middle of your conversation, he ex­cuses himself to tell an­other writer to give him 20 more minutes.

He's in Naples this week to play Georges, the gay nightclub owner who must entertain his son's stuffy, homophobic, potential in-laws, in the musical version of "La Cage Aux Folles."

Hamilton, 74, is doing it with a lame foot: He twist­ed a fascia at one point in rehearsals, and the doctor told him he was done.

"I thought about that. I had a contract," he recalls. "And then I asked the doctor if they could re­ally bandage me up, and I could take care of it and get through. He said yes." I haven't even missed a rehearsal. Not one," he adds.

Still, he concedes, when he has to do a twirl on the injured foot, "It hurts."

Hamilton is the man you'd invite first to your backyard barbecue, your daughter's wedding or your formal dinner party, just to have someone so urbane-looking in your crowd.

He also is a trooper who learned young, moving with his matrimonially inclined mother and two brothers so often. "I feel more at home in a ho­tel than I do in my own place," he concedes.

The Hamilton brood did settle down for George's high school years in Palm Beach, where he learned to act.

With his elegant good looks and the fire to find his best role — "I haven't played it yet," he declares — Hamilton was in films within two years of gradu­ation.

And he has played roles that swing wide spectrum, from the grim war film, "The Victors" (1963), to country singer Hank Wil­liams in "Your Cheatin' Heart" (1964) to a debo­nair vampire in "Love At First Bite" (1979) and a villainous magician ("The Little Unicorn," 2002).

He's a self-effacing star, however. Give him a minute to talk about "La Cage"and he'll rave about Christopher Seiber, who plays his longtime partner and cabaret star, Albin.

"He's the one who's the star. He can dance, he can sing, he can act — and all of it superbly, I'm just the name attached to sell the production."

No one doubts Hamil­ton takes whatever role he's in seriously. Frustrat­ed by a lack of good roles in the 1970s, Hamilton said he decided to produce them himself.

"I could sit around and wait for roles to come for me or I could produce it myself," he says with an inflective shrug.

He didn't mind doing that a bit. Among the re­sults are movies that have brought him through three decades since his early Hollywood work: "Evel Knievel," in which he starred as the mo­torcycle daredevil; "My One and Only," a loosely autobiographical tale of his vagabond family; and "Zorro, the Gay Blade," a comic turn on the masked avenger. "I actually like coming from behind," he says, with a touch of glee in that sophisticated voice.